Peanut Butter Chocolate Banana Ice Cream (#33-E)

Recently, a 52 Scoops reader requested some ideas for kid-friendly ice cream recipes. For a moment, I thought: All ice cream is kid friendly! But then, after scanning my Recipes page, I realized that unusual ice cream flavours like Mint and Peas, Maple Chocolate Bacon, and Black Sesame probably wouldn’t rank very highly in many kids’ books.

Kids like simple, basic flavours, so I figured peanut butter + banana + chocolate would be a pretty safe bet (except for those with nut allergies — sorry!!!).

This recipe involves churning chocolate covered banana pieces into an egg-free peanut butter ice cream. (Since peanut butter is already quite rich, I thought I could easily eliminate eggs from the recipe without compromising the creaminess of the ice cream.)

For the best tasting ice cream, choose an all-natural peanut butter for this recipe, one that doesn’t contain any extra ingredients such as hydrogenated oils. Smooth or crunchy? That is a topic of great debate, and I will leave that up to you. If you have a peanut allergy, substituting another nut butter for this recipe would work just fine.

Results? A delectable treat that can be enjoyed by little kids and big kids alike. The ice cream looked and smelled so enticing that the Official Taster, who was banned from tasting this week due to a mild peanut allergy, decided to taste anyway!

Add the sugar and cook the mixture, stirring constantly, until the mixture is smooth.

Remove from the heat and stir in the vanilla.

Chill overnight in the fridge.

To make the Chocolate Covered Bananas:

Spread the diced banana in a single layer on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.

Melt the chocolate in a small saucepan over low heat. Let cool completely and pour into a wax paper cone (cornet) or a small Ziploc bag — you’ll be using this to drizzle the chocolate over the banana.

If you’re using a Ziploc bag to drizzle the chocolate, snip a tiny corner off the bag. Using the cornet or the Ziploc, drizzle half the chocolate over the banana. Let the chocolate covered banana pieces chill in the freezer for 10 minutes.

When the chocolate hardens, you should be able to lift the parchment paper and the banana pieces off the baking sheet, flip the whole thing over, and peel off the paper. Drizzle the other side of the bananas with the remaining chocolate. Let chill in the freezer for 10 minutes.

After the chocolate hardens, separate the pieces of banana. Some of the chocolate might come off the bananas, but no worries — it’ll taste the same in the end! Store in the freezer until ready to use.

To Finish:

Pour the ice cream mixture into an ice cream maker and prepare according to the manufacturer’s instructions.

In the final minutes of churning, add the chocolate covered banana pieces. Churn to distribute evenly and thoroughly in the ice cream.